It’s Friday, April 17. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. If you missed TGIF, catch it here. Today: Much ado about a draft. Could dolphins reopen the Strait of Hormuz? (Yes, really.) Is peace possible between Israel and Lebanon? And much more.
But first: The trials and tribulations of the girlboss.
Pity the girlboss. She’s been blamed for so very many of America’s problems. The rise of the toxic workplace. The malaise of young men. And, of course, the falling birth rate.
But what if the girlboss is actually a scapegoat? What if she did nothing wrong?
In today’s piece, Patrick T. Brown tackles that third narrative: that America’s birthrate is falling because women have become too career-orientated. “AMERICA IS IN A FULL-SCALE BIRTH RATE COLLAPSE,” Katie Miller, wife of top Trump staffer Stephen Miller, recently warned on her podcast—before explaining that women’s “biological destiny is to have babies, not slave behind desks chasing careers while our civilization dies.”
But, writes Patrick, the birthrate isn’t actually falling that much among professional women. “A typical girlboss is not having as many kids as her grandmother,” he writes, “but she’s having, on average, as many as her mom, or is getting quite close.” The recent plunge in the birth rate can be pinned on low-income women without a college degree—although even that feels unfair.
Because it’s not that they don’t want kids; in surveys, they consistently say they’re childless struggling to find a guy “who will treat them with affection, provide for them, and upon whom they can depend.”
Read Patrick’s whole piece here:
Still, we must pity the girlboss. For though she’s more likely to end up married—she invariably seems to make a miserable wife.
If you’ve ever glanced at The New York Times, you’ll have read that working women are often saddled with more domestic chores, more childcare, more emotional labor than their gainfully employed husbands—whose careers will always take precedence.
This cultural anxiety runs deep, and it’s explored in the buzzy new Peacock show, The Miniature Wife, which is all about a couple bitterly fighting for space inside their own marriage. Our critic Kat Rosenfield just finished watching it, and was left with a question: What happens when we normalize the idea that you can’t be married to someone without resenting them?
She answers it here:
—Freya Sanders
Antisemitism is exploding in the United Kingdom, prompting some British Jews to ponder the idea of moving to Israel. But not Free Press editor Josh Kaplan. To do so, he writes in the latest installment of our newsletter tracking antisemitism worldwide, would “be an admission that we have lost.”
Israel and Hezbollah militias in Lebanon have been at war for four decades. But Donald Trump says they are on the path to “lasting peace,” after the U.S. brokered a 10-day ceasefire. Could peace really break out? Eli Lake reports on if a lasting ceasefire is possible—and what that would actually look like.
Are young men getting drafted? No, of course not, Nicholas Clairmont writes—but the internet would have you believe that they are, because the federal government automated selective service registration, removing onerous paperwork. Nicholas blames the “hypervigilant,” who, trying to zealously guard against threats to liberty, are just making us mad and detached from reality.
Iran has scattered mines across the Strait of Hormuz in a desperate attempt to shut down maritime traffic. Getting rid of the mines is top of mind for the U.S. Navy, and it may turn to dolphins to do it. What?! Yes, really. Madeleine Rowley spoke to Andrew Hooper, a former naval dolphin trainer, about how these smart mammals could clear the strait—and save the world economy.
Ezra Klein is one of the biggest names in podcasting, and this week he turned his attention to what he calls “the one-state reality” between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. Our Middle East analyst Haviv Rettig Gur wasn’t impressed. He breaks down what Klein is missing about the world’s most complicated conflict and how he treats the real people of the region as scenery in his theory of the case.
EDITORS’ PICKS
The backlash to artificial intelligence has turned deadly, fast. Last week, a young man threw a Molotov cocktail at the home of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, authorities alleged, and went on to attack the AI giant’s headquarters. Journalist Andy Mills spoke with the suspect months before the violent outburst, and saw the roots of the hatred that spawned it. Read Andy’s account of the conversation for a view of the extremism spreading among AI’s most radical online critics.
Has the government been lying about UFOs—and if so, what is it actually hiding? Whistleblowers have testified before Congress, Barack Obama has said aliens are “real,” and even lawmakers in D.C. seem convinced the government isn’t telling the whole story. Will Rahn sits down with journalist Michael Shellenberger in the first of a four-part series to make sense of what we know—mapping out the full landscape of unexplained incidents, cover-up theories, and why none of the explanations quite add up.
Few institutions have attracted the wrath of the president like the Supreme Court. After the Court struck down some high-profile administration decisions, some worry that Trump’s broadside against the coequal branch will weaken it. Not so fast, writes Sarah Isgur, author of the new book, Last Branch Standing: A Potentially Surprising, Occasionally Witty Journey Inside Today’s Supreme Court. She says that attacks on the Court only make it stronger.
Hampshire College, a venerable liberal-arts school in Massachusetts, announced this week that it is closing its doors. Michael B. Horn believes these closures will keep coming. Colleges have countless problems these days, from politicized classrooms to lost government funding. But shrinking enrollments are what’s sending them spiraling.
MORE FROM THE FREE PRESS
The college enrollment thing was easier to explain when I was younger. I’m late Gen X. There weren’t many of us to begin with, and we didn’t accidentally form many babby (search Internet graveyards if you’re unfamiliar with those memes….), but even the folks just younger didn’t have many kids.
Vibecoded a little survey tool at votto.app to measure sentiment on questions like this across different dimensions, traits, media community affiliations, etc. to see where things split in interesting ways. Dedicated page for The Free Press fam at votto.app/freepress
Not very interesting yet without meaningful data but if y'all enjoy seeing survey results sliced up by cross-tabs, would love to get some responses to test out the flow and see cool curves!